This is not the longest day, but it is the hardest.

*Image by Mark Stocker, so, so good ah…*

133km with 3380 meters, it features the two toughest climbs and a punishing final 40km over rolling hills that keep coming, body blows that are only barely alleviated by the astonishing beauty of the dense jungle and sweeping landscapes.

Leaving Dong Van we immediately start to climb, a 5km brat of a hill that stiffens itself out to 15% in patches, then we reach the peak and click down into the lower gears, awake now, seated right, legs connected, in the drops and sashaying down the oddly north-west Canadian-ish descent, tall evergreens everywhere, early morning sun dappling through pine trees and then we go into the open again, switchbacks, few trees, less and less buildings, more exposed karsts, limestone jagged, jutting from the earth like unhealthy teeth scattered in disarray, barely a patch of clear soil more than 3 meters wide yet on every possible surface are plants set by human hand nand upon them people toil, backs bent, brows furrowed in concentration, work getting done, as it has been for 1000 years and may be forever more.

How did these people get here and why did they stay?

What motivates them to subsist in this manner?

Is there peace to be found here, contentment?

Why do you ask so many questions?

That’s a good question.

We speed on for a while along these delicious, wobbly-weavy descents, and then we don’t, as the hill rises to meet us, as they will all day. The road must be a ribbon laid down by divine hand. We are moving out of the region of the monster karsts now and into the realm of soft-edged peaks that seem to have been imagined by a talented animator grafting away at Ghibli Studios, unheralded until someone stumbles upon his work and recognises genius.

We see you, Mr. Animator, we see you and we bow down at your funky feet.

Along the route we pass by older women in ones and twos on their way to and from their craggy allotments, some loaded with bushels of vegetation, others carrying bricks behind their necks, attached by fabric strapped around the head. Whatever they carry it all looks heavy and you know that these lives are hard-lived. Yet still they smile, they meet your eye and show their laugh lines, and it all fills you with thankfulness and humility.

I am here and so are you and though I am speeding by I will not forget that glimmer you gave to me of your energy and character, though I likely will not remember the shape of your face and its features, your smile I carry in my back pocket, and I too will smile when the thought of riding in your neighbourhood returns to me.

Thank you.

There are kids everywhere. No population shortage here.

*Just a kid taking his cow for a walk… Image by Benoit Pouliquen*

At 50km the long climb of the day starts. 12km long and an average of 6%, it’s fairly well paved but has 100–200 meter stretches where it is broken up and you just have to believe and bounce to get over it. You glide like a slippery little fish along the slower slopes, that 2–3% kinda stuff that has long bends you can power through. To the right the jungle hums and thrums its constant ode to the universe, to the left, the hill starts to fall away and opens to storied rice paddies that glimmer in the sun, stories on top of each other and storied in the history of the men, women and children who have told them, shaped them, harvested them for a millennia and more, and you rise up and up and thoughts drift like clouds into your mind and you remember a lost love or a childhood memory, and you maybe realise or not that you are close to zen here, sweat stinging your eyes, ice in a ziplock down the back of the jersey numbing your upper spine and you simply cannot take in the wondrousness, the majesty, the sheer perfection of nature’s beauty that confronts you and causes you too to wonder - maybe - how we fucked everything up so bad - or not, or maybe - nothing is certain.

It hurts, anyway, this one, and the end comes slow and with gratitude.

Regroup, drink, eat, drink and drink, ice! ICE! Give us ice!

*Mr. Whitworth on the vodka..! Water, we mean water… ;-)*

We get ice, we nod - ‘Good?’ - good. We go again, now down, now into a valley on more ribbon, and the land rises all about us, like it’s just now being thrust up. It seems to move and dance before your eyes. We don’t try to describe the geography of this area before we arrive for what is there to tell?

Our feeble human minds cannot find words.

Here is feeling.

Here are senses.

Here is.

Along the valley floor, rough road, hemp vibrant and in acres alongside, wooden houses, no windows, around 3pm now and children returning from school, some riding about on bikes on the floor of their one-road valley, smiles, high fives, that feeling again.

Next climb, hard, shorter but harder? Yes, 17% for 2km, nowhere to run even if you could, heat, no wind, like you’re wrapped in cellophane, then higher and a breeze, still grimacing, suffering, but be grateful that you can suffer, that you are fit enough to do this.

The final valley, long, 40km, looks easy on the map and might be ok if it was at the start, but it’s hunting us now, it’s growling, one climb feels like three with its false flats, up again, roadworks, hang on, balance, focus, exhausted, fighting. Then the descent to town, the sun setting over the mountains, dusk, the gloaming, darkness the last 20km to Ha Giang.

We are together. We got through it.

This is why we do it and this is why we are here.

STAGe 6 / ha giang loop tour / the queen rises

Stage 5 / Ha Giang Loop Tour / April 2026